The brain disease sweeping the West is virulent and
vicious, like the golden Staph which haunts many hospitals. Most at risk are
Presidents, Prime Ministers, Generals and journalists. The ailment is not
triggered by bacteria but by an ideology as old as history, which every so
often resurfaces as a new strain, and this one hasn't been named. It's often
fatal. Less so to the carriers than those caught in their sights. Let's call it
Kabul-sh*t - the propensity to ignore the years of violence inflicted on Afghanistan
and to paint the invaders as heroes.

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It sometimes seems that the greater the slaughter of
civilians, the louder the praise for the mission. This may be due to guilt.
Britain's Gordon Brown: We are in Afghanistan to purge terrorism. Australia's Kevin
Rudd: Our soldiers are building schools. America's Barack Obama: This is a war
of necessity. The Sydney Morning Herald: The mission is to bolster Afghanistan
against Al-Qaeda and to support regional stability in Pakistan.

Tosh, the lot of it.
The war started as an act of revenge on the perpetrators of the 9/11 tragedy
and was not authorized by the United Nations. It took two years and a thousand
bloody air strikes before UN Resolution 1510 finally granted the invaders an
after-the-fact "legitimacy". Many legal scholars still regard the
invasion as illegal under international law.

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Since the start of
Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, how many Afghani civilians have
been blown away? Take a guess. It's not widely publicized. Wikipedia puts
civilian casualties at roughly between 9,000 and 27,000. This does not
include the thousands of maimed children.

All for what? Why
are we there? The Taliban were not responsible for 9/11. Yes they are claims
the Sydney Morning Herald, they nurtured Al Qaeda. Breast feeding Osama bin
Laden, tucking in his little romper suit...? The Herald editorial ignores the
role of the CIA in seeding the Taliban, and pouring in cash and weapons for the
Mujahideen to kick out the Soviets.

In October 2001,
shortly after the US started its own invasion, the Taliban offered to surrender
Osama bin Laden to a third country for trial, so long as the bombing was halted
and they were shown evidence of his involvement in 9/11. George Bush's reply:
"There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty."

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A perfect example of
Kabul-sh*t. If Bush possessed the evidence, why wasn't it divulged? Three years
later, in October 2004, a video was delivered to Al Jazeera in which bin Laden
claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.

And so, eight years
after the invasion, despite what Western Generals keep promising, US and NATO
bombs continue to pulverise this unhappy land. It's like a never ending blood
sport. Why can't we pull out? Every politician has a different answer. Former
Australian Prime Minister, John Howard pithily expressed the fear that lurks in
the souls of warmongers: A premature withdrawal would be a blow to the prestige
of the West. Remember Prince Harry a few years ago, calling in air strikes on enemy
positions, the media thrilled. Hurrah for Western prestige. Never mind that
our continued occupation involves aerial assassination on a massive scale, a
kind of slow motion genocide look at the record!

Richard Neville has been a practicing futurist since 1963, when he launched the countercultural magazine, Oz, which widened the boundaries of free speech on two continents. He has written several books, including Playpower (71), the bio of a global (more...)